


All Halves and Wholes

by jumpitorloseit



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Closeted Character, Fluff and Angst, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Mutual Pining, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Soulmates, Prequel, again just kind of, ancient philosophy, sammy loves both his boys so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-16 21:37:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16503158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jumpitorloseit/pseuds/jumpitorloseit
Summary: And that really stuck with him, ya know, that Sammy could really be half of Jack. That they weren’t right unless together. Sammy was wrong until he met Jack and now, well, now he’s nearing 2 years wrong again. Except maybe, even though Jack’s missing and Sammy aches with that loss every day -- Sammy isn’t quite as wrong as he should be, because now, well, now he has Ben. And maybe, Sammy is kind of half of Ben too. Correct fractions be damned.Sammy is heavy, Sammy is a half, Sammy can maybe someday be whole.(half prequel, half set around episode 28, just past Emily's abduction)





	All Halves and Wholes

Sometimes Sammy thinks about the one philosophy class he took in college. He took it with Jack, filling out part of their humanities requirement. Sammy had already admitted to himself he loved Jack by then. And that was new. Sammy very rarely accepted anything about himself. And even though at the time he really believed it would amount to nothing, it didn’t feel as wrong as it should have, loving Jack. He didn’t believe there was any possibility in the world Jack could be gay and love Sammy the way Sammy loved him, and there was no way in hell Sammy was ever telling him, but it still didn’t feel _wrong_ , nothing about loving Jack could have been wrong. Jack was what made Sammy’s world right. It had been scary and exciting and Sammy felt like he was filled up with Jack from the tips of his fingers to his toes, all Jack all the time and it made him lighter, Sammy had thought. He could float with Jack in his system.

Sammy liked the class because, turns out, the ancient greeks might have been gayer than he was. And frankly, the world was pretty starved for satisfying lgbt+ content when he was in college. As Ben reminds him regularly, Sammy’s kind of old.

In the Symposium, Plato wrote about all these philosophers fighting about what love was, sort of a narrative, but really as a proxy for Plato to share his own ideas. Sammy thought if he had been at the symposium, if he had been one of those thinkers waxing lyrical about love, he would have said something about feeling like a vessel, like a creature made for the sole purpose of loving Jack.

He still feels that way, he supposes, but now there’s _more._

One of Plato’s philosophers suggested that humanity’s original condition was actually two soulmates attached. People were like little round balls, halves connected, until they were split in two and now human halves are on this eternal quest to find the other half of their soul: “love is born into every human being: it calls back the halves of our original together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature.”

Angsty now, angsty then, Sammy looked over at Jack, in that little Ancient Philosophy 160 class and really believed in healing the wound of human nature with love.

And that really stuck with him, ya know, that he could really be half of Jack. That they weren’t right unless together.

Sammy was wrong until he met Jack and now, well, now he’s nearing 2 years wrong again.

Except maybe, even though Jack’s missing and Sammy aches with that loss every damn day -- Sammy isn’t quite as wrong as he should be, because now, well, now he has Ben. And maybe, Sammy is kind of half of Ben too. Correct fractions and gay philosophers be damned.

_“You don’t get it!”_

_“You’re right, I don’t! I didn’t have someone I love ripped from me live on the radio, begging me for help!”_

The half truths spill out of Sammy’s mouth and cut at his heart like they always do. Sammy is all halves, half truths, half lies, half whole.

He has been thinking about telling Ben about Jack since basically the moment he came to King Falls. Something about Ben screams “ _trust him”_ and with his middling to expert knowledge on all the weird goings on this strange town, Sammy feels like probably Ben is a good person to have on his side. And then later, when Ben isn’t just a colleague but his _best friend_ , Sammy knows he definitely needs to be cluing Ben in on the real reason Sammy is here. But the thing is, Sammy has never been forthcoming even before his whole world was leveled. Sammy has been dealing in half truths his whole life.

On Sammy’s first night in town, Tim Jensen’s taken. Sammy meets Mary and she has a vacant lost look that he sees in his own face every single damn day in the mirror. It’s that look that all people whose other halves are somewhere out of reach have. And now Ben has it too. Sammy’s Ben has that _look._

And now the further away things get from his first night in King Falls the more “too late” it feels to tell Ben about Jack. And now with Emily gone, Ben’s teetering on an edge that Sammy is all too familiar with. Any words about Jack feel heavy. He doesn’t need to one up Ben’s pain. Their experiences are the same and they are different. Sammy _wasn’t_ forced to listen to Jack begging for help live on the air, but the weeks leading up to his disappearance were clearly a different cry for help, and Sammy had done a shit job of helping. And now Ben’s suffering and Sammy just needs to be a supportive friend, not a friend who is half absent. Ben doesn’t need to know Sammy is just a half. Half truths, half lies, half whole. Ben needs _hope_ and if Ben knows the truth of how hopeless things can really get, well, Sammy isn’t about to do that to Ben.

Especially since Sammy _cannot_ lose Ben.

Sammy has been thinking a lot about how he feels about Ben. Ben reminds Sammy of Jack _so much._ He’s funny and snarky and a little angry and he loves so hard. Not to mention Ben’s a hardworking producer, and a little bit too preoccupied with the paranormal, not at all unlike Jack.

Sammy feels weird at first about how quickly Ben worms his way into his heart and the comfort his friendship with Ben gives him. Is he trying to replace Jack with this new radio co host? He learns quickly that he isn’t, of course. Although he does love Ben. Fiercely. Maybe as much as he loves Jack. But it isn’t the same love he feels for Jack, not even in the same hemisphere, same universe. And the love he feels for Jack isn’t the same love he feels for Ben either, not even in the same hemisphere, not even in the same universe.

Sammy loved Jack from the beginning. Well almost. They sat next to each other, near the back in a required gen-ed stats class in college. They already sort of knew each other as fellow broadcast journalism majors. It was in that class, probably, that they fell in love, giggling about how bad they both were at math and doing poor imitations of their professor’s kermit-like voice. Sammy realized that _no one_ had ever made him laugh like that. But it could have been as early as orientation day when Sammy had no idea who Jack was, just a boy across the room that made Sammy’s ears go pink when Jack smiled because no smile should have been allowed to be that pretty, that bright, that damn near blinding. Or maybe it was a bit later when they found off campus housing the next year with Jack’s sister, Lily. And they would stay up late, talking and being _seen_ by one another in a way that neither had been seen before.

Sammy had crushes on men before Jack, but his skill in the ancient craft of repression and denial was _masterful_ so he knew how to ignore those crushes. His crush on Jack was the first one he couldn’t ignore, the first time he felt so strongly, he felt like his feelings themselves were grabbing him by the chin and turning his head towards them, forcing him to look them directly in the eyes. Demanding him to admit he was gay, or at the very least deeply Jack-sexual.

Sammy had a girlfriend when he first really let himself admit that fact. Her name was Twyla and she was a nice enough girl, probably as uninterested in Sammy as he was in her by how little of his time she demanded. They shared the same sense of relief when the other would cancel plans.

It was one of those blessedly cancelled date nights that Sammy realized just how much he loved Jack. Sammy was sitting on the floor, legs tucked under him, back against the garish orange couch with the sunken in cushions they had found on the side of the road for free. (God, he wishes they hadn’t thrown that couch away. What he wouldn’t give to have it set up in his apartment now. He’d love to walk out of his bedroom in the morning and be startled by that shock of orange, that horrible shade of orange that is so tied up into his first great moments with Jack. He wants that orange to wake him up every morning and remind him with a punch in the gut what he’s in King Falls to do.) He was nursing a beer, his hands holding it tight, his knuckles white, determinedly not turning around. Jack was behind him probably laying on his stomach because Jack’s voice seemed to be directly in Sammy’s ear. He could kind of feel Jack’s breath on the back of his neck when he spoke, making jokes about the movie they were watching.

Sammy’s skin felt so hot. And he felt this sense of needing _more._ This friendship, as important and special as it was, was killing him. Jack’s hands were in his hair, playing absentmindedly and Sammy was doing everything in his power not to groan. He had a girlfriend, for god’s sake, Twiggy- no, Twyla. _God._

More. More. _More._

He had a sudden realization, sitting on that floor, back against that couch, Jack completely ignorant to what he was doing to Sammy. _Oh no,_ he thought _, how cliche can you be, Sammy, closeted and in love with your goddamn roommate._ But then he smiled, realizing with bitter glee, that with his crush officially free from the chest in the back of his mind labeled “ _do not open”_ he could let himself think all the thoughts he had ever thought about Jack that he had pushed away. Sammy allowed himself to admit in that moment that Jack hung the moon and all the stars with it, and if Jack had the time between class, and running their school radio station, he probably hung the sun too.

Jack seemed to breathe love. Everything he did was filled with affection and passion. The way he talked about radio, about journalism, about this book he had just read, about his sister, about their friends, about Sammy, god, even about that fucking terrible stats class. He was light and enthusiasm and _love._ He was easy with affection. Touching and holding those he cared for. He curled into Sammy often and would sling an arm around him on their way to class. He didn’t carry the same overwhelming sense of wrongness and heaviness that Sammy did.

Until one day he pulled back. He would look at Sammy with these inscrutable expressions. He would sometimes reach for Sammy and Sammy would look at him and then Jack would retreat, his eyebrows scrunched and expression pained as if Sammy was just out of reach. Like Jack was air and above and Sammy was just too heavy and below. Sammy thought maybe Jack had figured out that he wouldn’t get to float if he was with Sammy.

They had been out of school for a few years when Jack and Sammy finally got together. Jack, Sammy, and Lily still lived together in their college town. Sammy was, unfortunately, still pining for his straight roommate and was still firmly in the closet he had padlocked from the inside.

Strangely enough, Twyla stayed in town too and they had become good friends after their inevitable breakup. She had broken up with Sammy a few months after Sammy had realized he loved Jack. She had told him that she was pretty sure she was gay and had some stuff to figure out. Sammy had been incredibly relieved but didn’t tell her his own secret regardless. He had felt with absolute certainty that the first person who should know was Jack. And well, he was never going to tell Jack.

Except, of course, he did eventually. Twyla had just left his house from a pizza, beer, and movie night. And Sammy was feeling light, a feeling he didn’t often have. Jack came out of his room when he heard the door close behind Twyla, his expression one that Sammy wasn’t sure he could read. Which was a rarity, because Sammy sometimes thought he could see right through Jack. Right down to his very core.

“You guys have been hanging out a lot lately. Trying it out again?” Jack said, nodding towards the door his voice a sort of forced casual. Sammy thought maybe Jack looked sad, and Sammy’s heaviness returned, pulling him back down to earth.

“Uh, no still just friends,” Sammy scratched the back of his neck, wishing that Jack could still touch him with the ease he once had, when did Jack stop loving him like air? Sammy pushed on, “we’re better as friends and now we’re, well, now we’ll stay friends. It’s easier. Less pressure,” Sammy said walking towards their garish orange couch with the sunken cushions that while lacking in stuffing was instead filled with memories and feelings and so much unsaid between the two boys. He wasn’t going to out Twyla to Jack and well, he definitely wasn’t about to out himself.

“Less pressure,” Jack repeated, following Sammy to that stupid disgusting memory soaked couch and now they were both seated, not a tangle of limbs like they once could have been but instead sitting, staring straight ahead a whole ocean between them. When did they get so far apart?

Sammy felt heavier than he ever had, what was happening? He felt like an anchor. If they were on the opposites sides of an ocean, he was sinking, but he spoke anyway, words tumbling out of his mouth fast and hot, half truths spilling out between them, “not that it’s always better, with everyone, to be just friends. Sometimes you want _more_ you know? And sometimes the more isn’t more, it’s just, it’s wrong. Like it was wrong with Twyla but with others the _more_ could be good… could be not wrong.”

More. More. _More._

“Wrong?” Why did Jack look so crushed?

“Listen-” They both started and flushed and why was Jack looking at him like Sammy was about to break his heart. Sammy would never, “you go,” Sammy said.

“Sammy, I don’t think I can live with you next year, when this lease is up.”

Sammy’s mouth fell open, his anchor pulled him down deeper, his ears popping, lungfuls of the stuff you can’t breathe, “what did I do? Do you not like Twyla?”

Jack shook his head, “no, I--” He stopped and stared at Sammy for awhile and Sammy didn’t dare interrupt him. He needed Jack to go on, give him an explanation, say more. _More. More. More._

“Ah, fuck it,” Jack shook his head and then grinned wryly, “nothing can be worse than what I’m doing to this friendship already, can it? Might as well just come out with it.” And then a pause, “come out with it? Jesus, that’s a bit too on the nose, Jack,” he looked like he was laughing. And Sammy didn’t dare hope.

“Sammy, I love you. And not just in the way I love Lily, or Jane, or Connor. I love you in that other way. That big way that makes every moment with you fill up every part of me. And you just let me touch you and be near you and I’ve been taking advantage of that because you didn’t know how I was feeling or that it was different for me,” he stopped again and took a deep breath, “and I can’t live here with you or be around, breathing you, when I so desperately want _more.”_

_More. More. More._

Sammy didn’t know when they ended up so close or how. There had been an ocean between them and now a few inches. Closer, closer, more, more, more. And then Sammy was kissing Jack and Jack was frozen for a few seconds, and then he was kissing Sammy back and Jack pulled Sammy even closer to him, that tiny gap of air between their bodies meant they were nowhere near close enough. If a single blade of grass could have fit in the gap, that meant they needed to be closer. Closer, closer, more, more, more.

Jack suddenly jumped back out of Sammy’s arms like he had been scalded, “I--” he was breathing so hard and Sammy wanted to pull him back to him. He wanted Jack to be able to touch him again with the same ease he once had, “this can’t just be--” He scrunched up his eyebrows and looked at Sammy shrewdly, “you have no idea how much I want this Sammy, but--”

Sammy suddenly understood, in a big way, why Jack couldn’t touch him the way he once had. This threshold they had just crossed meant, in public at least, they could never touch with ease again. Every touch, every look, every breath loaded with this _stuff_ between them. Although maybe it had always been.

Sammy laughed, Jack was taking him through the ringer. Leaving him broken, and hollow, and hale, and whole all in a matter of seconds. He got up, grasping at Jack’s fingers. If Jack couldn’t show Sammy his affection the way he once did, then Sammy would show him his at least, right now, when it was just the two of them, “Jack, I want this too, I want this… You blind me Jack. I am an anchor and so heavy and you are so light and you help me float,” he pulled Jack to him, “we don’t have to tell everyone, anyone even. I’m not sure if I want that either. But this, you and me together, this can be easy, I think. This can be just ours.”

And then they were kissing again and Sammy’s face was wet and he wasn’t sure whose tears they were.

With Ben, it’s different, Sammy doesn’t need _more._ He can’t imagine thinking this friendship isn’t enough. Can’t even dream of not being completely fulfilled with pancake puppies and coffee at Rose's, Ben sputtering after Troy makes an unexpected joke about Ben's height, a combination of betrayal and mirth and joy in his eyes, crinkled at the corners.

Sammy can’t remember loving anyone quite the way he loves Ben. Like a brother, maybe, but there’s something about this chosen family that feels way more like home than his own growing up life ever did. _Just friends_ feels like an insult. Being friends with Ben is everything, no _just_ about it.

The air isn’t thick with something Sammy can’t name when Ben and he bicker over which line to take. The air is never thick around Ben. It’s just air. It’s good air.

Ben centers him. He’s not heavy, he’s grounded.

Jack breathed love and their air was filled with so much of it and Sammy loved him--loves him. So so much. Sammy and Jack were halves of the same whole. Plato’s little human soulmate balls. With Jack gone, half of Sammy is missing.

But.

With Jack, Sammy could float, could fly even. With Ben, Sammy can walk, or run, or just be.

In that philosophy class, that one he took with Jack, they read Aristotle. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle talked about all these different kinds of friendships, pleasure, utility, virtue. And in a virtue friendship you made that friend _good_ and they made you _better._ Only good people are capable of loving another person for that person’s own sake.

Sammy doesn’t really believe he’s similar in virtue to Ben. Ben is probably the purest form of good. But he sure as hell loves Ben for his own sake and wishes good things for him. Aristotle talked like friendship was enough. So did Plato, Sammy thinks, a platonic friendship doesn’t just mean a friendship isn’t romantic, it means it is _good._ Platonic friendships are the ideal. He thinks maybe he and Ben’s friendship is the ideal, is goodness incarnate.

Jack was all that too. Jack was the sun when the people left Plato’s cave and saw the light for the first time and not just the shadows.

What is Sammy?

He thinks now though, suddenly, sitting in the station with Ben yelling at him about how he can’t _possibly understand_ , thinking in halves feels not quite right. To think he comes even close to a half of what is good about Ben or Jack is laughable. But still, without them, he isn’t whole.

He tries to imagine what it would be like to have both of them at once. His best friend and the love of his life near him. He probably doesn’t deserve that much good.

But.

_"You don’t get it!”_

_“You’re right, I don’t! I didn’t have someone I love ripped from me live on the radio, begging me for help!”_

He won’t tell Ben. Ben doesn’t need to know Sammy isn’t whole, much less a fraction right now. Not halves, not thirds, not anything, he is just a vessel for loving Ben and Jack. Like he’s the part of a flower where the pollen is, the anther? And Ben and Jack are his petals and when the petals fall off, he isn’t really much of a flower anymore.

If Ben losing Emily means Sammy loses Ben, well, that won’t do. So he’ll help him. Just for now, just until Emily’s back. He will be enough for Ben.

They’ll get Emily and then when Ben is whole again, Sammy will find Jack.

He had come to King Falls with a singular purpose. Get Jack back and now… Well now, he wants Jack back and wants Ben and he wants Ben at Emily’s side. He wants to float and be grounded all at once. He will never be as good as Jack and Ben but they can make him _better._ And god, he doesn’t just want Jack back, Sammy wants _more._

Sammy is heavy, Sammy is a half, Sammy can maybe someday be whole.


End file.
